Image by thinkstock

Israel dismissed as “radical leftist” a group of American scholars that has decided to boycott it but worries that other academic forums in the United States could take similar action, the deputy Israeli foreign minister said on Tuesday.

The American Studies Association (ASA) on Sunday became the largest U.S. academic group to back an anti-Israel boycott in solidarity with the Palestinians. Its vote was mostly symbolic as the group has no power to compel its some 5,000 members or any U.S. institution to heed the resolution.

Still, Israel worried the measure could pave the way for grassroots efforts to isolate it in the United States, its main ally and sponsor of its peace talks with the Palestinians. Anti-Israel boycotts have gained some traction in Europe.

Forwarding the News

Thoughtful, balanced reporting from the Forward and around the web, bringing you updated news and analysis each day.

Terms(Required)

I agree to the Forward's Terms of Service and Privacy Policy

Email(Required)

The European Union has taken a stronger line than Washington against Israel’s West Bank settlements, demanding they not be eligible for EU academic funds allocated to Israel.

Deputy Israeli Foreign Minister Ze’ev Elkin described the ASA as a “radical leftist group” with few links to academia in Israel.

However, Elkin told Israel Radio, “we need to prepare for the danger that it (boycott call) will pass to other, more serious academic forums”.

He said that Israeli diplomats and Jewish American groups were “intensively” trying to dissuade other U.S. academics from following the American Studies Association’s lead.

The Foreign Ministry, Elkin said, had set up an advocacy group, “Faces of Israel”, to “work among those who wield influence exactly in order to prevent cases such as this”.

The ASA’s resolution backed a recent unanimous vote by its national council to urge U.S. schools not to collaborate with Israeli institutions. But it carries broad exemptions for individual Israeli scholars working with American counterparts.

The association said the resolution was a response to “the documented impact of the Israeli occupation on Palestinian scholars and students; (and) the extent to which Israeli institutions of higher education are a party to state policies that violate human rights”.

Israel said the boycott campaign unfairly singles it out.

“The ASA chooses as its first ever boycott to boycott Israel, the sole democracy in the Middle East, in which academics are free to say what they want, write what they want and research what they want,” Ron Dermer, Israel’s ambassador to the United States, wrote on Facebook.

In May, British cosmologist Stephen Hawking withdrew from a prestigious Israeli conference. Cambridge University said he did so as part of a boycott by some British academics in protest against Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, lands the Palestinians want for a future state.

The American Studies Association was the second U.S. scholarly group, after the Association for Asian American Studies in April, to endorse an academic boycott of Israel.

The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.

Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.

This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

2X match on all Passover gifts!

$90 → $180 $180 → $360

$360 → $720

Other amount